Verbatim

• Share

'[It] has been a choreographed farce from beginning to end.'
GARRY KASPAROV, former chess champion, on court proceedings after he was sentenced to five days in jail in Moscow. Kasparov had been arrested after attempting to lead an unauthorized march against Russian President Vladimir Putin

'If he sees a very attractive woman, his eye will wander ... He doesn't look like your classic religious sort of guy.'
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL, former spokesman for Tony Blair, on why Blair avoided talking about religion while in office. Blair now says his faith was "hugely important" to his performance while he was British Prime Minister

'The truth is, I am unsure about the truth.'
AMANDA KNOX, in a four-page written statement on the murder of her roommate in Italy, Meredith Kercher. Authorities say the American exchange student has given at least three different accounts of what happened that night. She is in custody but maintains she did not kill Kercher

'A great country must have a strong currency.'
NICOLAS SARKOZY, President of France, during a visit to Beijing to lobby Chinese leaders to let their country's currency, the yuan, appreciate. The relative weakness of the yuan against the euro and the dollar stymies European and American exports to China by making them more expensive

'Don't describe a kitten as a tiger.'
PAN JIAZHENG, senior engineer for China's Three Gorges Dam, downplaying recent reports of rising costs, environmental risks and resettlement problems associated with the reservoir, stretching 400 miles (640 km), that was created by the dam

'I started to look around and see a lot of people who were unhappy. They were anesthetizing themselves with gossip or alcohol or psychopharmaceuticals or affairs.'
ATOOSA RUBENSTEIN, controversial former editor in chief of Seventeen